White Knuckles
by lunchables
Summary: You're always hoping for a miracle that won't change your life this time. But if it's Rachel Berry, you don't care how much it'll be different. Because anything about that girl is worth it.


You guess being nervous is kind of a given, because - well, it's prom. Not _even_. It was just a regular school dance that they liked to label as a Semi Formal even though everyone dressed totally formal anyway. Like the really stereotypical scene with itchy corsages and sea-foam colored, ruffled dresses that are either too long or too short, or maybe they show a girl's boobs too much. On the right girl, you shrug as you admit that isn't too bad of a sight.

As long as it's not on Rachel Berry.

Right.

That's kind of a sight you'll reserve for the privacy of a very nice, confined and delicately-locked, closed bedroom. Yours or hers, ideally, but you won't complain too much if it's a spare in Puck's house while alcohol floods through the floors downstairs and the music drains everyone's ears.

So yeah. Being nervous is alright. It's expected, it's cool, it's okay.

What _isn't_ okat is when Rachel Berry is late.

Normally, you'd be the one to pick her up. You have the nicer car for outings like these, and you kind of assumed the more chivalrous role in the relationship. You opened doors for her a lot, and you were often the big spoon. You took her hand in the hallways and you asked her on dates. Normally, you wouldn't analyze things so much like this, but Rachel was really into it and the labels, and the idea that you, Quinn Fabray, are whipped. It's okay, because she kind of attacks your face and smothers it with these tickling, wet kisses when you bring her a rose so you can never really complain.

Because Rachel Berry kisses are the best, and you kind of want to live off them.

You tell Rachel that sometimes, and she raises a really cute eyebrow at _kinda_ and she asks _"Kinda?"_ like she knows you're a liar so you just shrug and reply "_Kinda._"

But right now, Rachel is _late_ and it's _Rachel Berry_.

You text her, and she doesn't answer, but you know she's by her phone. Even when you're enveloped in her arms and knotting your fingers around the fabric of her shirt, she has her phone tucked into her back pocket (always on vibrate, and you make a few innapropriate jokes that prompts her to smack you over the head). Texts sometimes make her nervous, you know, because you see the way her eyes are in class when you message her beneath the table. You like to think it's only the texts from you that make her head croon and jumble and a heart rate that isn't steady with her thoughts.

But you know better, so you don't think about it.

It's a few minutes, and she still doesn't text you back (if she's driving, you know she'd pull over to assure you otherwise).

You really, really want to wait outside because the way your mom is staring at you kind of makes you feel sick. Like keel over a toilet and dry-heave nothing but air until your lungs are exhaustedly deflated because she's thinking her perfectly popular angel is getting stood up. _God,_Judy Fabray was never stood up back in her day when people depended on boom boxes over their skulls, so where did she go wrong (not only were you gay, which was sort of weird but kind of okay, but you got stood up by pretty brunettes that liked to wear stockings in the summer).

So you call her. You listen to the rhythmatic sputtering and ringing in your ear and it feels really empty. Your pale blue dress is pretty and perfect because your mom ironed it for hours, but when you look down at it, you think it's wrinkled. It's not, but all you can think is that it is and that Rachel Berry hates wrinkled clothing.

She answers, but she doesn't say anything, and you can hear her uneven breathing. You say her name, and she's breathing faster.

"Rachel... where are you?" you rasp and you wish you sounded charming. You're always charming when it comes to Rachel.

"I'm in the car."

Rachel's ridiculously bashful when it comes to you, but she sounds scared. Scared like someone snatched her wrist and was tugging it over an open, seething flame boiling the blood in her veins.

You blink and lick your lips. A nervous laugh tickles in your throat. "Would it be naive to think you're on your way?"

She doesn't laugh, and you know you're not funny.

"Rachel, sweetie..." You don't use petnames unless you're desperate, and she knows. You know each othertoo well for either of you to be comfortable.

(Except you are)

"I'm so sorry, Quinn," she gushes, and you feel like a bird with it's wing caught under a rock. "I-I can't, th-they'll tear us apart." You want to hold her. "They'll tear _you_ apart."

"No, no they won't Rach," you croon, but it isn't enough and you can feel it. All you wanted was to dance with your loving, adorable girlfriend in a dim lighting with sparkling bulbs laced and threading over your heards. You want to twirl your arm around her waist, drop it low and listen to her squeal in her ear before shimmying down so your arm rides up to an appropriate placement while you oress infectious kisses along her temple.

But you don't know how to explain to her that _it can all really happen_.

"It's okay, sweetie. They don't care about us, you and me. Just- we-" You don't have enough words to tell her it'll be okay and you can feel the meter running low.

A choked sob strangles the line and you leave your mom alone in the threshold. It's chilly out, cool and sharp like the wind under your skin. She hiccups and you murmur soothing blessings into her ear. "We can do this, Rach. I can take care of you, and you'll be here for me. We don't need anything else."

"It's enough _in a few years_. It'll be enough when we graduate a-a-and-" she's hiccuping again like a small child sobbing, and she can't say anything else until she sniffles and clears her throat. "It won't be enough unitl it's over and I want it to be enough _now_."

You can almost taste her tears, and you need something to reach her. She's burying herself deeper and deeper by the second and your scrabbling for a shovel to get her out while she just loses herself more.

"It isn't _now_ yet," you assure her. "It's all in your head sweetheart. When we get there, it'll just be us. It'll be enough _then_ and forever after."

You want to think this a nightmare prior to this actual day, that you're panicking with nerves as you writhe inside stained, dirty sheets. Until you wake up with a sticky sweat slabbered to your forehead and the sheets are clean and you can hear Rachel breathing steadily on the phone.

"It _is_ now Quinn, don't you get it? This dance is going to be now _forever_ and it's never going to end. I-I don't- Why do we need to do this now? Why do we need to let _them_ give us the labels? Can't we wait until a really big city has a signup sheet for us to put down the ones we've already given ourselves?"

She isn't really making sense and you don't know how to tell her.

Rachel's dramatic - she is, and she knows it. She likes to think that you're both this new pairing of Adam and Eve (sapphic-style) and when you fall apart it's a poem inscribed in a museum. She talks about you both like she's writing a drama for a TV show that will air for 9 seasons and is way too complicated.

She over analyzes things, and you hate it, because you just want to be with her.

"Rachel... just come here. Or I'll go there. We can talk about this." You don't want to beg, but you know she'll make you.

"Quinn! Please understand, _I don't want to do this_. I don't want to share you with them and I don't want to share what we have. It's _mine_. It's not theirs." She's panting like she's been running, and you can hear the dull hum of the radio in the background, but you know the car hasn't moved. She never talks when she's driving.

"Rachel... if we don't go now, we'll never go. Everyone knows, at school. They know we're together and they don't care. I've kissed you in the hallway and I just want to kiss you tonight."

"You can," she breathed, and you know she's not crying anymore. But her breath is awkward and her heart is beating and truculent in her chest. "But I don't want them to see."

"They already have."

"Not like this."

"_Rachel_," you aggravatedly growl into the phone, because you're a little annoyed and you know you're late and you just want to hold her hand. "I don't care about a stupid dance or these stupid people but-"

"So why do we need to go?!"

"-_but_..." You pause to make sure she doesn't continue to interrupt. "But this isn't for them. This is for us. You've never accepted who you were. You want to change your nose and you keep dying your hair different shades of brown hoping people will think that it's just something natural you conjured up over the summer and you get fake tans a lot. You either change yourself, or try and change them because you can't accept this difference."

She isn't talking and you can't stop.

"But I love you becuase you're you, and you're not them. I love you because your name is Rachel Berry and you look exactly like Barbra Streisand with your own Berry twist and I love your voice and I love your sweaters and I love the God-awful dress you're most likely wearing now. I know it's going to be frilly with too many colors but I'll tell you I love it because I do." You pinch the bridge of your nose again, rubbing your palm against your cheek and trying to wash away the exhaustion you're succumbing to before the night's even started.

"You're scared of the light and you try and hide in the dark," you mumur, knowing they're the kind of cliche and dramatic words she loves. "Stop breathing in the cold and just... _come. Here." _You can hear the way she's steadying herself, and you feel like maybe she's breathing hot air onto the back of your neck now.

* * *

When she pulls up into your driveway, you're positive your dress is wrinkled, but she isn't looking at it. Her eyes are red but she smiles. You smile back, and pull her into you, your arms cascading around her neck as she buries herself into you. You threw out the shovel and cracked in a freaking buldoser to get her out. You pull away, slightly, because you want her out in the light. Inside of you is peaceful, yes, but you know she's her brightest out there.

And when you kiss her, later in the night, your arm rubs down her back a bit too low, and her giggle is cracked and high-pitched as she stretches behind you to pull your hand back up. She kisses you with open lips into your mouth beneath Christmas lights, and the taste of her is sweeter on your tongue than the candy she scolds you for eating.


End file.
